Thin oxide (e.g., SiO2) and oxynitride (e.g., SiOxNy) layers are often used as dielectric layers at the Si surface of an integrated circuit. This is in part because of excellent electrical properties of the oxide and oxynitride layers, including high electron mobility and low electron trap densities. Semiconductor transistor technology is currently requiring oxide and oxynitride gate dielectric layers for conventional gate dielectric applications that are less than about 10–15 angstrom (A) thick, or as thin as 5–7 A for use as interface layers with high-dielectric constant materials (also referred to herein as high-k materials).
A native oxide layer that is typically a few angstrom thick, forms easily on clean Si surfaces, even at room temperature and atmospheric pressure. An oxide layer with a desired thickness that is larger than the native oxide thickness, can be grown through the native oxide layer, but usually the thickness uniformity and quality of the oxide layer is poor across the entire Si substrate.
Alternatively, the native oxide (or the chemical oxide) can be removed from a Si surface prior to growing a new oxide layer. The native oxide layer can, for example, be removed using liquid baths containing dilute hydrofluoric acid (HF) or by using HF gas phase etching. A new oxide layer can then be re-grown on the clean Si surface by conventional thermal oxidation, but the initial oxidation can proceed quickly and result in poor thickness uniformity and inadequate electrical properties. For ultra-thin (less than about 20 A) oxide layers used in transistor technologies, the leakage current is dominated by the tunneling current.
Si-oxynitride layers are viewed as one of the most promising alternate material to replace the SiO2 gate oxide, while still being compatible with the Si technology. Thin oxynitride layers are usually formed either by thermal processing methods or by plasma-based methods. Nitridation of ultra-thin oxide layers, that results in the formation of oxynitride layers, has been shown to alleviate various limitations encountered with oxide layers. The improvements include increased resistance to boron penetration, lower tunneling leakage current and interface-state generation, and less threshold voltage shift under constant current conditions. The improved dielectric properties that are observed for oxynitride layers are attributed to the fact that the nitrogen atoms at the surface of the SiO2/Si act as a barrier to boron penetration and can reduce strain at the SiO2/Si interface.